My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest. – Psalm 22:2

Today's Scripture Reading (August 10, 2025): Psalm 22

Abandonment is the first word that comes to me as I read this Psalm. Many years ago, back in my youth pastor days, I was taking our youth group to an event that was outside the church. We had a church van, but we often needed several cars as well to move all of the teens to and from these events. And that was often a challenge.

On this night, we had met at the church. I had instructed the kids to get into one of the several vehicles that we had prepared to take them to the event. Once we got everyone into the vehicles, I jumped into the Church van, and our caravan of cars started off toward the event. We had driven a few blocks from the church when it occurred to me that there was one teen I hadn't seen as I was getting everyone into the vehicles. The missing teen happened to be a teen that I knew very well; she was my daughter. I remember pulling over on the side of the road, and the caravan pulled over behind me. I started to go through the vehicles looking for the one kid I hadn't seen. I found my son. I had been pretty sure that he was in the van I was driving, but my search confirmed that my daughter was missing.

As a parent, there is this moment when you start to imagine all the things that could have happened. Did she realize that we had left? We armed the alarm system at what we had thought was the now-empty church before we had pulled away, which meant that if she was in one of the many rooms of the church, as soon as she ventured into a hallway, a thunderous alarm would begin to ring, an event which would undoubtedly scare her. At this moment, was she feeling abandoned by her parents and her friends? Where was she?

We rushed back to the church and disarmed the alarm. It had not been ringing, so wherever my daughter was, she hadn't ventured into an area that was equipped with a motion detector. We started a search for my little girl. Somebody found her. She was talking with a couple of friends in the Women's Washroom. She didn't even know we had left, so she didn't feel abandoned, even if, for a few moments, she had been.

There are times when we all feel abandoned. When I was in my early twenties, I attended a small-town church. I have admitted that some of the darkest times for me emotionally have happened in that space between Christmas and New Year's Day. This year was no different; I was spiralling.

Back in the day, we used to do something on New Year's Eve, which we called a "Watchnight Service." Often it began earlier in the evening with board games or some other family activity. Around 11:00 p.m., we would move into a time of worship, often with communion and prayer celebrated as we approached the midnight hour. On this night, I was deeply depressed. I remember as the watchnight service began, I was sitting on the stairs leading to the basement of the church. I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere. The singing in the sanctuary started, and I just didn't want to move. I was feeling abandoned, as if I couldn't enter the sanctuary, and yet I also didn't want to stray far away from the worship service either. And so, for the next hour, I just sat there, listening to the events that were taking place just a few feet away.

I don't know, but I kind of think that this is a universal experience, that there are times when we reach that point of feeling that our God has forsaken us. Maybe some of us get to that point more often than others. The lucky among us may only feel that way a couple of times in a lifetime. But there are at least a couple of times when each of us is tempted to utter the words from Psalm 22.

"My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest" (Psalm 22:2). It is the way we feel, but that doesn't mean that the abandonment is real.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 23